Robot system and method for sampling procedures in trucks and carts for concentrate transportation in metal smelting processes

ABSTRACT

At present, concentrate sampling in trucks and transportation carts is carried out manually and the disadvantage of this is the fact that the system is less efficient as a result of the less representativeness of the samples obtained. Due to the above, a robot system and method have been developed which are able to carry out the sampling in trucks and carts for concentrate transportation in an automated way in order to ensure the representativeness of sampling by improving the control over the product to be commercialized. The robotic system is composed mainly of a robotic manipulator of at least 5 degrees of freedom, and a gripping mechanism which allows to take the sampling device from a tool holder Located at one of its sides, moving them through a defined path to the sampling area where the sampling process over a mesh to be defined will take place in a sequential and programmed way in concentrate transportation trucks and/or carts.

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS

This application claims the benefit of provisional patent application Ser. No. 60/734,977 filed 2005 Nov. 10 by the present inventor

FEDERAL SPONSORED RESEARCH

Not Applicable

SEQUENCE LISTING OR PROGRAM

Not Applicable

BACKGROUND

1. Field of Invention

This invention relates to the use of robotic technology in mining industry to improve the representativeness of the samples obtained, specifically in the smelting area.

2. Prior Art

In metal smelting processes, the main raw material is the concentrate.

The smelting plants usually treat the concentrate from their own plants or third parties, in such a way that when the concentrate belongs to third parties, a purchase is carried out and for this it is necessary during the reception stage to determine the concentration grade. This is done by taking samples of the concentrate from inside the hopper and/or cart by an extracting tube which is handled manually by one person who is in charge of going over the load and carrying out the sampling process. The importance of the sample taken to the concentrate is based on the fact that almost all the decisions are based on the values obtained from the material subjected to sampling, noting that a sample means a part or a portion extracted from a group through methods which allow to consider the sample as representative of the group and being understood that the sampling is the action of collecting samples which represent the average quality or conditions of a group or the technique employed in this selection or the selection of a small part which is statistically determined to deduce the value of one or more characteristics of the group. In this regard, this activity determines the value to be paid to the third parties for the concentrate and the conditions for the raw material to enter the smelting process, this is the reason why eliminating the bias associated to the operator is vitally important when taking the samples. Other important task in sampling is to distinguish the accident rate risks of the personnel carrying out the activity.

Particularly, the task of taking samples of concentrates is carried out manually and the disadvantage of this is the fact the system is less efficient as a result of the less representativeness of the samples obtained.

SUMMARY

A robot system and method have been developed for automated sampling of concentrate in order to ensure the representativeness of the sampling by improving the control over the product to be commercialized.

DRAWINGS—FIGURES

In the drawings, closely related figures share the same numbers, with different alphabetic suffixes.

FIG. 1. View of a robotic manipulator taking a sample of the concentrate in trucks and transportation carts.

FIG. 2. General view of a robot system for concentrate sampling.

DRAWINGS—REFERENCE NUMERALS

-   -   1. Robotic manipulator     -   2. Gripping mechanism     -   3. Sampling device     -   4. Tool holder     -   5. Sampling area     -   6. Truck in sampling position

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

This invention relates to a new robot system as well as a robotic method for concentrate sampling in trucks and transportation carts, which is carried out automatically through anthropomorphous robotic arms of at least 5 degrees of freedom, which are installed at one side of the sampling area.

With reference to FIG. 1 and FIG. 2, the robot system is composed mainly of one robotic manipulator (1) of at least 5 degrees of freedom, provided with a communication, acquisition and control system, and a gripping mechanism (2) to allow to take the sampling device (3) from a tool holder (4), located at one of its sides, and move them through a defined path until reaching the sampling area (5) in which the sampling process over a mesh to be defined in the concentrate transportation in trucks and carts will take place (6). 

1. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes comprising an anthropomorphous robotic arm of at least 5 degrees of freedom, one control, communication and programming unit, one gripper adapter, one pneumatic gripper, its fingers, one pneumatic gripper driving system, one electric supply system, one vision system and one sampling device or apparatus wherein the anthropomorphous robotic arm of at least 5 degrees of freedom is provided with a pneumatic gripping mechanism which allows in a sequential and programmed way to take, manipulate and release a sampling device and move it through a defined path to the sampling area in which a concentrate sampling process is carried out in a sequential and programmed way over a mesh to be defined in the concentrate transportation trucks and/or carts.
 2. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes, according to claim 1, wherein the robotic manipulator has a gripping mechanism to take, manipulate and release in a sequential and programmed way an advanced vision system for surface inspection in order to carry out a surface verification procedure in different paths within the work volume of the robotic system.
 3. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the robotic manipulator has a gripping mechanism to take, manipulate and release in a sequential and programmed way a sampling device or apparatus from a fixed and/or mobile tool post located at one of its sides and moves it within the work volume of the robotic system.
 4. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator could communicate by itself or through a PLC interface with the control system.
 5. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has the capacity to obtain and interpret the information from installed analogue and/or digital sensors.
 6. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has the capacity to generate analogue and/or digital signals to control analogue and/or digital input devices.
 7. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the robotic manipulator, of at least 5 degrees of freedom is mounted on a fixed and/or mobile support.
 8. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the system has a tool post from which the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator of at least 5 degrees of freedom could take a sampling device or apparatus and move it through de defined path to the sampling area in the concentrate transportation truck or cart in which the sampling process over a mesh to be defined will take place.
 9. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the system has a sampling device or apparatus which is used to take samples from the concentrate transportation truck or cart.
 10. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has an electrical system driven by three-stage induction motors, with vectorial and/or scalar control.
 11. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein productivity and efficiency of the sampling process of concentrates and/or metals increases, by improving the representativeness of the sample and the quality control of the product to be commercialized.
 12. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein it could be integrated not only to smelting processes of different metals such as copper, molybdenum, zinc, lead etc., but also it could be used for sampling activities, either individually or in collaboration, in a wide range of other industrial productive processes.
 13. A robot system for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes according to claim 1, wherein the system may operate automatically, or semiautomatically, and also allows solutions scalability.
 14. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the system uses an anthropomorphous robotic arm of at least 5 degrees of freedom provided with a pneumatic gripping mechanism which allows in a sequential and programmed way to take, manipulate and release a sampling device or apparatus and move it to the sampling area in which in a sequential and programmed way the sampling process of concentrate over a mesh to be defined in the concentrate transportation trucks and/or carts will take place.
 15. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the robotic manipulator has a gripping mechanism to take, manipulate and release in a sequential and programmed way an advanced vision system for surface inspection in order to carry out surface verification procedures in different paths within the work volume of the robotic system.
 16. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the robotic manipulator has a gripping mechanism to take, manipulate and release in a sequential and programmed way a sampling device from a fixed and/or mobile tool post located at one of its sides and move it within the work volume of the robotic system.
 17. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the robotic manipulator of at least 5 degrees of freedom is mounted on a fixed and/or mobile support.
 18. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator could communicate by itself or through a PLC interface with the control system.
 19. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has the capacity to obtain and interpret the information from installed analogue and/or digital sensors.
 20. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has the capacity to generate analogue and/or digital signals to control the analogue and/or digital inputs devices.
 21. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the system has a tool holder in which the anthropomorphous robotic arm of at least 5 degrees of freedom can take a sampling device or apparatus and move it though a defined path to the sampling area in the concentrate transportation trucks or carts in which the sampling process of the concentrate over a mesh to be defined will take place.
 22. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the system has a sampling device which is used for sampling processes in the concentrate transportation truck or cart.
 23. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the anthropomorphous robotic manipulator has an electrical system driven by three-stage induction motors with vectorial and/or scalar control.
 24. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein productivity and efficiency of the sampling process of concentrates and/or minerals increases by improving the representativeness of the sample and the quality control of the product to be commercialized.
 25. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein it could be integrated to smelting processes of different metals such as copper, molybdenum, zinc, lead etc., but also it could be used for sampling activities, either individually or compositum, in a wide range of other industrial productive processes.
 26. A robotic method for sampling in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein the system may operate automatically or semiautomatically, and also allows solution scalability.
 27. A sampling tool or device for sampling procedures in concentrate transportation trucks and carts in metal smelting processes using the robot System of claim 1 to 13, wherein such tool or device is located in the tool holder in order that the robotic manipulator may take it in a sequential and programmed way to carry out the sampling process and once this sampling activity is finished, it is repositioned in the tool holder. 